Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/429

been surpassed. The famous prophecy of Gibbon, that ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘that exquisite picture of human manners, will survive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria,’ will be found in his Memoirs (Miscellaneous Works, i. 415). Coleridge's eulogy upon the ‘sunshiny, breezy’ spirit of ‘Tom Jones,’ as contrasted with the ‘hot day-dreamy continuity of Richardson and of “Jonathan Wild,”’ is in his ‘Literary Remains’ (1836, ii. 373). Scott has praised him in his ‘Life,’ and Thackeray in the ‘English Humourists.’ Other criticisms worth notice are in Hazlitt's ‘Comic Writers’ (1819), pp. 222–8; Taine's ‘English Literature’ (by Van Laun), ii. 170–6; Mr. J. R. Lowell's ‘Democracy and other Addresses,’ 1887, pp. 89–105.

The following is a list of Fielding's plays, with first performances, recorded by Genest:

1. ‘Love in Several Masques,’ 16 Feb. 1728, Drury Lane.
2. ‘The Temple Beau,’ 26 Jan. 1730, Goodman's Fields.
3. ‘The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town,’ March 1730, Haymarket (with additions, 19 Jan. 1734, Drury Lane).
4. ‘The Coffee-house Politicians, or the Justice caught in his own Trap,’ 4 Dec. 1730, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
5. ‘Tom Thumb, a Tragedy,’ afterwards ‘The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great,’ Haymarket, 1730, and with additional act, 1731.
6. ‘The Grub Street Opera’ (first called ‘The Welsh Opera’), (with this ‘The Masquerade, inscribed to C-t H-d-q-r, by Lemuel Gulliver, Poet Laureate to the King of Lilliput,’ said to have been originally printed in 1728), July 1731, Haymarket.
7. ‘The Letter-writers, or a New Way to Keep a Wife at Home,’ 1731, Haymarket.
8. ‘The Lottery,’ 1 Jan. 1732, Drury Lane.
9. ‘The Modern Husband,’ 21 Feb. 1732, Drury Lane.
10. ‘The Covent Garden Tragedy,’ and
11. ‘The Debauchees, or the Jesuit Caught,’ 1 June 1732, Drury Lane.
12. ‘The Mock Doctor, or the Dumb Lady Cured,’ 8 Sept. 1732, Drury Lane.
13. ‘The Miser,’ February 1733, and with ‘Deborah, or a Wife for You All’ (never printed), 6 April 1733, Drury Lane.
14. ‘The Intriguing Chambermaid,’ 15 Jan. 1734, Drury Lane
15. ‘Don Quixote in England,’ April 1734, Haymarket.
16. ‘An Old Man taught Wisdom, or the Virgin Unmasked,’ 6 Jan. 1735, Drury Lane.
17. ‘The Universal Gallant, or the Different Husbands,’ 10 Feb. 1735, Drury Lane.
18. ‘Pasquin; a Dramatick Satire on the Times, being the rehearsal of two plays, viz. a comedy called “The Election,” and a tragedy called “The Life and Death of Common Sense,”’ April 1736, Haymarket.
19. ‘The Historical Register for the Year 1736,’ May 1737, Haymarket.
20. ‘Eurydice,’ a farce, 19 May 1737 (printed ‘as it was damned at Drury Lane’).
21. ‘Eurydice Hissed, or a Word to the Wise,’ 1737, Haymarket.
22. ‘Tumbledown Dick, or Phæthon in the Suds,’ 1737, Haymarket.
23. ‘Miss Lucy in Town,’ 5 May 1742, Drury Lane (partly by Fielding), ‘Letter to a Noble Lord … occasioned by representation’ of this, 1742.
24. ‘The Wedding Day,’ 17 Feb. 1743, Drury Lane. A German translation of the ‘Wedding Day,’ followed by ‘Eurydice,’ was published at Copenhagen in 1759.

A play called ‘The Fathers, or the Good-natured Man,’ the manuscript of which had been lent to Sir C. Hanbury Williams and lost, was recovered about 1776 by Mr. Johnes, M.P. for Cardigan, and was brought out at Drury Lane 30 Nov. 1798, with a prologue and epilogue by Garrick.

His other works are:

1. The ‘Champion’ (with Ralph), collected 1741. Fielding contributed articles from 27 Nov. 1739 to 12 June 1740. Tῆς Ὁμήρου ΥΕΡΝΟΝΙΑΔΟΣ ῥαψωδία ἢ γράμμα α’, The Vernoniad, January 1741; ‘Of True Greatness,’ January 1741 (and in ‘Miscellanies’); ‘The Opposition: a Vision,’ December 1741; ‘The Crisis: a Sermon on Rev. xiv. 9, 10, 11’ (see Nichols, Anecd. viii. 446).
2. ‘The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams,’ February 1742.
3. ‘A Full Vindication of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough,’ 1742.
4. ‘Plutus, the God of Riches’ (from Aristophanes), with W. Young, June 1742.
5. ‘Miscellanies,’ 3 vols. 1743 (early poems, essays, ‘Journey from this World to the Next,’ and ‘The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great’).
6. Preface to ‘David Simple,’ 1744 (and in 1747); preface to ‘Familiar Letters between the principal characters in David Simple and some others;’ ‘Proper Answer to a Scurrilous Libel by Editor of “Jacobite's Journal,”’ 1747 (defence of Winnington; Lawrence, 225).
7. ‘The True Patriot,’ a weekly journal, 5 Nov. 1745 to 10 June 1746.
8. ‘The Jacobite's Journal,’ December 1747 to November 1748.
9. ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling,’ February 1749.
10. ‘A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury … of Westminster,’ 1749.
11. ‘A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez,’ 1749.
12. ‘An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, &c., with some Proposals for Remedying this growing Evil,’ January 1751.
13. ‘Amelia,’ December 1751.
14. ‘The Covent Garden Journal,’ January to November 1752.
15. ‘Examples of the Interposition of Providence in the Detection and Punishment of Murder,’ April 1752.
16. ‘Proposals